Buying a new computer specifically for psychology applied course.

Well buying a new computer in general comes with a number of factors to consider, such as:
Price
Size
Memory

Price:
Well we are students and we don't make much money if any at all so obviousy price is the major factor, but if that wasn't enough we then have to match the price with list of requirements we need which leads into Size:
Now most students travel to and from college so for safety reasons i'd advise on going with a laptop or a notebook (WHICH COME IN PINK!!!!). They are easy to cary round and fit into your schoolbag which helps as you have no dodgy strangers trying to figure out the easiest way to snatch your new pink notebook.
The other major factor to consider when buying a computer for college is memory. You need a computer that holds just enough to easily allow you to save essays, images ,videos and seeing as this is an applied course we will be dealing with features such as photoshop, microsoft word ect so you have to make sure that your assignments will save and also have back uo memory to ensure that your assignments are safely saved.
As i mentioned we will be using a lot of different applications so if your buying a laptop for this course it has to be compatible with the software used in college, in this case i would recommend a windows laptop as most computers in college are using windows vista. This will allow you to easily transfer info from college computers to your own with no complications. The worse thing is for your project not to save properly or to change due to not having the right software,thus resulting in your assignment being late.
So in conclusion when buying a computer for college just make it so its as easy as possible for you to use and maintain as college is hard enough without having the extra trouble of making sure your laptop is up to scratch.

An example of a affordable laptop:
Dell Inspiron 15

Affordable Technology Within Reach
Introducing the new Inspiron™ 15, a 15.6" laptop that gives you the everyday features you need, all at a great value.

7-in-1 Media Card Reader
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic SP1 32-Bit
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Built in WiFi options
Starting weight of 5.8 lbs. (2.64 kg)

All this for €379 which inculed postage and packaging and if that wasn't good enough you don't have to make any payments until march 2010!......Oh and it comes in pink!!

ICT CA2: Effects of Technology on Classrooms and Students

First off when studnts are using technology in a education situation the teacher-student roles are reversed. Students start to do things for themselves, we are getting the information needed, we are making the choices needed to find the info we need and also making the choices on how to display that info. We are able to set our goals, make the decisions to get it done and are able to evaluate our progress which in all fairness we expect the teacher to do for us, using technology kinda matures us. The teacher is no longer giving us the info instead he/she is asking why certain things were done and how. The power is put in the our hands whether we like it or not.

This power and sense of accomplishment motivates us, we get satisfaction with the immediate feedback provided by the computer and are dead proud of ourselves after mastering the task at hand.

"Technology is the ultimate carrot for students. It's something they want to
master. Learning to use it enhances their self-esteem and makes them excited
about coming to school"

--Fifth grade teacher

Of course along with this motivation and sense of enpowerment you also have the skills we students learn from using technology in a classroom. Not saying were exactly lazy, but if we weren't made to explore computers more then setting up a facebook account then we simply wouldn't learn anything worthwhile.

Now there is a debate on how technology seperates people but in a classroom situation how many times have you turned to your side and helped the person beside you that is stuck on photoshop? and felt well chuffed with youirself after doing it. I've also seen kids helping each other a lot at the computer.

"The ones that pick it up faster, they love teaching it to someone that doesn't
know it yet"

--Fifth-grade teacher.
And i know these are references to kids but aren't we all a tad bit of a child inside?

By using technology we become aware of outside resources we try to be the best so we look 4 stuff outside our teachers recommendation therefore we learn how to use the vast majority of resources available to us.

So all in all isn't amazing how technology can change our classroom environment? not only does it change what we think of ourselves but it also changes how we interact with our peers.

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/effectsstudents.html

ICT CA 1: Sixth Sense

"'SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. "

Sixth sense was invented by pranav mistry from india. It was created to allow us to interact with the digital world as we would with the physical world. What pranav wanted to do was take technology out of the confines of mobile phones or ipods and release them into the physical world.

The sixth sense prototype is made up of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera.
the projector allows you to project visual info on walls,paper any surface around us while the camera tracks hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. Coloured markers are used on each finger which allow you to control the visual info by using your hands.

The current prototype system would cost about €223 to build. Ha deadly!!



Publications

•P. Mistry, P. Maes. SixthSense – A Wearable Gestural Interface. To be appeared in SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, Sketch. Yokohama, Japan. 2009
•P. Mistry, P. Maes. SixthSense – A Wearable Gestural Interface. To be appeared in SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, Emerging Technologies. Yokohama, Japan. 2009
•P. Mistry. The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology. TEDIndia 2009. Mysore, India 2009
•P. Mistry, P. Maes, L. Chang. WUW - Wear Ur World - A Wearable Gestural Interface. In the CHI '09 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. Boston, USA. 2009
•P. Maes, P. Mistry. Unveiling the "Sixth Sense," game-changing wearable tech. TED 2009. Long Beach, CA, USA 2009

Useful links for psychology :D

http://psychology.about.com/

http://www.psihq.ie/

http://www.psychology.org/

http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/fgloss.html

http://www.cfar.org.uk/

http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/brain.html